Immigrants from Muslim nations fear what Trump changes will bring

Shayan Zadeh emigrated from Iran on a student visa in 2000 to attend the University of Maryland. Today, he is the founder and CEO at Leap Rail and now a U.S. citizen.

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

Murtadha Al-Tameemi, a 24-year-old Iraqi software engineer at Facebook, was in Canada for the opening night of his brother’s play when he received a phone call from someone he wasn’t expecting: his immigration lawyer.

“Where are you?” she asked. When she heard he was in Canada she said: “OK, come back right now.”

She told him that President Trump was planning on signing an order temporarily banning people from some Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq. Al-Tameemi, who is in the U.S. on a worker visa, decided he would stay because it was an important night for his brother.

But that night he was unable to sleep, tossing, turning and wondering: Did he make the right decision? Would he be blocked from re-entering the U.S. and lose his job? He got to the airport five hours early the next day and was able to return without incident, but he’s put future travel plans on hold.

“I’m very anxious. It seems so unfair — I’ve been in this country all these years. I’ve contributed to society,” said Al-Tameemi, who first came to the U.S. 10 years ago. “I haven’t done anything wrong, but there’s punishment for something that we didn’t do.”

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Al-Tameemi’s attorney contacted him after seeing a draft of an executive order on immigration that was posted by several media outlets. Trump has yet to issue such an order, but he has made it clear he intends to change U.S. immigration policy.

The possibility that Trump will implement such an order is creating uncertainty among workers, students and others from those countries who have established roots in the Bay Area. Advocates are telling those with visas to consult attorneys before leaving the country, while some lawyers are warning them against foreign travel at all.

In an interview Wednesday night on ABC, Trump took issue with describing his planned action as a “Muslim ban.” Instead, he said, it would be aimed at countries that “have tremendous terror” and from which people “are going to come in and cause us tremendous problems. ... You’re looking at people that come in, in many cases, in some cases with evil intentions. I don’t want that. They’re ISIS.”

Shayan Zadeh reviews code and answers business emails at Bravado, on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif. Zadeh immigrated from Iran on a student visa in 2000 for the University of Maryland. Today, he is the founder and CEO at Leap Rail and now a U.S. citizen. Zadeh said he couldn't do what he's accomplished today if Donald Trump was president when he was in college. Zadeh's brother is following a similar path. He is currently on a research visa working on stem cells, but he might be at risk of being kicked out of the country under President Trump.

Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle 2017

Pratheepan Gulasekaram, an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who specializes in immigration issues, said it would be easy for Trump to expand the number of countries on such a list once an order is in place.

“It is obviously not (aimed at) the entire Muslim world, but it is a small fig leaf for a start of a broader ban on immigration from Muslim countries,” Gulasekaram said. He noted that a policy put in place by then-President George W. Bush after 9/11 requiring mainly Muslim male immigrants to register with the federal government started with those from a handful of nations, but eventually expanded to cover 25 countries.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it had received numerous calls from immigrants in the U.S. on worker or student visas who are worried about their future under Trump.

“This is disrupting a lot of lives,” said Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director of the organization. “This is a Muslim ban. What this amounts to — and the dangerous part of this — is we’re seeing the rhetoric turn into actual policy.”

Some of those who could be affected by a U.S. policy shift say they’ve flourished in this country and have made contributions to their adopted home.

Shayan Zadeh said he had long wanted to come to the U.S. from his native Iran before securing a student visa in 2000 to get his master’s in computer science at the University of Maryland. He went on to found Zoosk, an online dating platform that made more than $200 million in revenue and created jobs in the Bay Area. Since then, Zadeh has founded another startup designed to spread artificial intelligence technology in hospitals.

“This (process) is a big part of my background, and it’s how I got to be where I am,” said Zadeh, who lives in San Francisco and became a U.S. citizen in 2013. “These changes would make it impossible for somebody else in my shoes.”

And it comes in the face of statistics that show a different side to the threat described by Trump.

No immigrants from the countries cited in the leaked draft order have committed lethal terrorism attacks in the U.S. in the last 15 years, said Albert Ford, a research assistant at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. In that time, 80 percent of terrorism acts in this country have been committed by U.S. citizens or legal residents, he said.

If Trump follows through on his plans, it will be “a really sad day for refugees and immigrants,” said Eskinder Negash, former director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

One potential hurdle for would-be immigrants is the possibility that the U.S. would require their home countries to provide information on visa applicants. It’s unclear whether countries such as Iran would cooperate. If they did not, their citizens would in essence be barred from entering the U.S.

Zadeh wonders whether his Iranian family will ever be able to visit him in the U.S. or whether his brother, who is in the country on a student visa, will be able to obtain his green card granting him legal residency.

“The blanketness is really shocking,” Zadeh said of the possible U.S. changes. “Just saying no matter what the circumstances that the door was closed — it feels very one-way, authoritarian. It feels very un-American.”

Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter covering immigration, race, civil rights and breaking news. Hamed graduated from the University of Oregon and spent a year living in Amman, Jordan. He is always on the hunt for stories so feel free to contact him with ideas and pitches.